Quick Summary: Read why language (English vs. vernacular), mode of access (Internet vs. mobile) and social dynamics (global vs. Indian) will be the three dimensions of differentiation for Indian social networking sites.
Most of the Indian social networking sites are basically India-focused Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut/ LinkedIn clones. Such clones would only be popular amongst a small set of twenty-something Indians in metros who won’t want a clone anyways.
I also presented a typology of Indian social networking sites on a 2X2 matrix with Indian-vs-global social dynamics on the X-axis and Indian-vs-global user appeal on the Y-axis –
– and suggested that –
To really build an identity and a broad Indian user base for themselves, Indian social networking sites need to reflect the unique nature of relationships in the Indian society. Read More
Quick Summary: Read a soon-to-be-real scenario featuring imaginary Indian Social Media Outsourcing (SMO) company BuzzPundit to understand why SMO will be the next big business opportunity for India after BPO and KPO.
Imagine a sprawling corporate campus on the outskirts of a large Indian metro (take your pick from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon or Pune). Imagine 10000 twenty-something Indians sitting in front of their computer screens. If you must, think of a call center. Except that these twenty-somethings are not making call after call to customers in the US; they are reading articles, posts and comments and tagging them, or responding to them.
Welcome to BuzzPundit. You are at the corporate campus of one of India’s many social media outsourcing (SMO) companies. Read More
Quick Summary: Read about how to run an effective blogger review program across a wide variety of product and services categories.
Background: While blogger review/ blogger relation programs have become popular internationally over the last two years, they are virtually unheard of in the Indian context. At the @MumbaiTwittweetup last Sunday, I was speaking to a friend about setting up a blogger review program, and decided that it will be useful to put down my thoughts in the form of a how-to guide.
Scope: In this how-to guide, I’ll focus on running an effective blogger review program, not a blogger relations program. A blogger review program is typically a tactical, short-term, time-bound campaign focused on getting bloggers to review your new product or service. A blogger relations program involves building more strategic, longer-term, open-ended relationships with bloggers who are influential in your product or service niche. In terms of applicability, blogger review programs can be effective across a wide variety of product and services categories, including books, music CDs, movie DVDs, websites, gadgets and restaurants.
Step 1: Set up the blogger review programRead More
Quick Summary: Yours truly was featured today in Indian daily Hindustan Times’ full page story on Young India Forum panel discussion on the Indian Budget 2008.
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Yesterday, I was part of a Hindustan Times Young India Forum panel discussion on the Indian Budget 2008. The Young India Forum is an initiative by Hindustan Times to “drive change and reach more people more directly”.
Hindustan Times had put together an interesting panel consisting of young film-makers, entrepreneurs, and corporate fast-trackers and I had a great time at the panel discussion –
Finely tailored suits, chic skirts and fancy designations — a perfect picture of corporate India, but without the grey hair. On Friday, young MDs, VPs and filmmakers, representatives of the changing face of corporate India, got together to take part in the Hindustan Times Young India Forum. To discuss, naturally, the Budget presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
As the FM read out the fiscal Budget — his fifth in a row — clad in a pristine white dhoti, these designer-clad corporate honchos chuckled, sighed, laughed and gave their perspective on one of the biggest events of the year in India. Read More
Another related area where I’m suddenly seeing very high level of good quality activity is in the marketing, public relations & social media blogs niche in India.
Not very long back, I had mentioned that Gauravonomics Blog was one of the five Indian blogs on the AdAge Power150 list. Today, as many as fifteen Indian blogs can be on that list.
The blogs included in this list are not only written by marketing, public relations, or social media practitioners, they are also focused on these topics. Blogs on unrelated topics written by marketing, public relations, or social media practitioners are not included in the list.
The main objective of the list is to develop a sense of community in the niche. This is the reason why I have added blogger profiles on Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter wherever possible. This is also the reason why I have structured this list alphabetically (by author name) and not as a ranking. Agency blogs and multi-author blogs are listed separately. Read More
Quick Summary: The second Mumbai Twitter Meetup at Italian restaurant White in Goregaon had a full house with as many as sixteen people turning up.
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In Mumbai? On Twitter? Let’s meet up.
Here are the details of the next Mumbai Twitter Meetup —
Date: Sunday, March 2, 2008
Time: 11:30am – 3:30pm
Location: White, Off Link Road, Near VIBGYOR School, Goregaon, Mumbai, India
Aditya, who owns the Italian restaurant White, has graciously offered to give us 50% discount on food for the meetup.
So, what are you waiting for? If you aren’t already on Twitter, go sign up Twitter, then start following me @Gauravonomics, Aditya at @acmhatre and Mumbai Twitter Meet at @MumbaiTwit.
Quick Summary: Indian daily Mid-Day did a story today on cool bachelor pads and used mine as the lead.
Indian daily Mid-Day did a story today on cool bachelor pads and featured my own humble bachelor pad as the lead —
Gaurav Mishra, 28, Marketer
After 6 years of slumming it out at hostels and PG setups (through his education and internship), Gaurav Mishra was finally ready to settle down. “Not in the oft-used sense of the term, of course,” the IIM-B alumnus jokes. So, the 28-year-old traded in his nomadic lifestyle for a 2-bedroom flat in Cuffe Parade, that he painstakingly furnished and colour coordinated black upholstery, orange bedroom, blue living room to ensure it feels like home.
Gaurav’s tips: Don’t blindly follow people’s advice. I was told cane furniture is difficult to maintain, but I’ve had mine for the last 4 years. And it’s good as new. Instead of letting stuff (clothes, books, dishes…) pile up, allot spaces for various things, and ensure they go there. Booze bottles and glasses stay in the bar cabinet, books and DVDs in my second bedroom, that I plan to turn into a podcasting studio, the technophile says. Read More
I have been watching the social media marketing scene in India for a while now, and, suddenly, things seem to be heating up in this space. On the demand side, companies/ brands are showing willingness to engage with social media and, on the supply side, many players are offering, or planning to offer, a variety of social media services.
The Indian players offering social media marketing services can broadly be divided into three categories –
- Digital advertising agencies offering social media marketing services with a focus on virals, social network apps, social media campaigns etc.
- Public relations agencies/ practitioners offering social media services with a focus on online reputation monitoring and social media outreach etc.
Quick Summary: My take on the PR vs marketing debate in social media circles — nobody owns the social media sandbox.
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There’s a debate going on in search, marketing and PR blogs on what is Social Media Marketing, how does it relate to Search Marketing and Social Marketing, and who owns it.
On one extreme are the SEO/ SEM experts who primarily focus on the role of social bookmarking, social news and other social networking sites in driving traffic to websites (The Search Marketing Purists) –
Social media is easy to hype because there is a lot of traffic on social media sites. But if you try to do anything with social media traffic to convert it to revenue, you will be hard-pressed — unless you are selling CPM-based advertising. (Aaron Wall)
On the other extreme are the not-for-profit social workers who primarily focus on the role of marketing in influencing social behavior and bringing about social change (The Social Marketing Purists) —
Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society. (Nedra Kline Weinreich) Read More
Twitter, a popular microblogging service abroad, recently introduced an India number. Says Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, “The people of India are very sophisticated when it comes to using SMS to stay connected.”
In Mumbai, Twitter recently inspired a ‘tweetup’, when Gaurav Mishra, a marketing professional and an “early adopter of technology”, wrote out a post saying “Blog meets are so passé. I want a Mumbai Twitter meet.”
Quick Summary: Here’s an opportunity for you to get featured in a Best Kept Marketing Secrets e-book along with some of the world’s top marketers, small business experts and bloggers.
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Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends asked some of the world’s top marketers, small business experts and bloggers — including Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and John Battelle — to share one of their best kept marketing secrets. I’m totally amazed by the range of good advise contained in her compilation of best kept marketing secrets and the 100+ comments.
Now, Anita is planning to compile 100 of the best tips received till the end of February into a downloadable e-book.
If you are a marketer, I strongly suggest that you read Anita’s compilation of tips and then share your own tip in the comments section today itself.
Here are three reasons why you should contribute to the collaborative e-book –
1. Collaborative e-books are a brilliant way of networking and building visibility in your niche. I know many marketing bloggers because we were co-contributors for the Age of Conversation e-book. Read More
Quick Summary: Duncan Watts debunks The Influentials and The Tipping Point, but word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing practitioners will do well to continue to focus on the tipping point potential of influentials.
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Here’s a potential game changer for word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing.
Word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing is based on the premise, best captured in bestsellers like The Influentials and The Tipping Point, that a small cadre of well-connected people can trigger, or tip, trends. Reach the influentials and you’ll reach everyone else through them, basically for free.
Now, based on his new research, network theory scientist Duncan Watts, who is working at Yahoo! on sabbatical from Columbia University, says that this simple premise is wrong. While I’m still trying to fully understand what Watts own premise is, here is my three sentence summary of what he seems to be saying –
- Even supper-connected influentials don’t have the power to start a trend, unless the social context is anyways susceptible to the trend.
- The key, therefore, lies not in identifying influentials who will tip a trend, but in identifying trends that are ready to be tipped. Read More
Quick Summary: Businesses based on the influence curve of an idea cluster are likely to be more robust and less risky than businesses based on the influence curve of one idea.
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Ideas have a bell-shaped influence curve. Over time, ideas gain influence, reach a peak influence at a point in time and decline in influence thereafter. If your business is based on an idea, like all businesses are, your business is limited by the idea’s influence curve. To build a successful business, you would like to identify an idea early, build competence/ credibility before others during the growth phase, make money at peak influence, and exit/ diversify during the decline phase.
Different ideas have different influence curves. You can think of an influence curve in terms of height (peak influence), gradient (rate of acceptance) and width (life of idea). To build a successful business, you would like to identify an idea that has a fast rate of acceptance, a high peak influence, and a long life. Read More
Quick Summary: In Mumbai? On Twitter? Register for the first Mumbai Twitter Meetup. Not on Twitter? Find seven reasons why you should sign up for Twitter today.
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If You Are in Mumbai & on Twitter, Attend the Mumbai Twitter Meetup
Yesterday, when I tweeted about wanting to do a Mumbai Twitter Meetup —
Blog meets are so passe. I want to do a Mumbai Twitter meet. Anyone interested? (Twitter)
– I received half a dozen responses within seconds.
Quick Summary: Read about how marketers should use different social media tools to serve different objectives depending on the level they are at in the Marketing Chain of Being.
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Social media is such an elusive idea that most social media/ marketing/ public relations bloggers are still struggling to answer several basic questions about social media –
- What exactly is social media?
- How is social media related to marketing, advertising, customer service and PR?
- When should marketers use social media?
- How should marketers measure the effectiveness of social media?
However, when I thought a little more about it, I realized that social media has a (different) role to play at almost every level in the Marketing Chain of Being.
Quick Summary: Read about the five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being, and the three laws that govern how brands move between them.
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In an earlier post, I had written that, like the Renaissance Chain of Being, there is also a Marketing Chain of Being.
In this post, I’ll explain the five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being, and the three laws that govern how brands move between them.
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The Five Levels in the Marketing Chain of Being
There are five levels in the Marketing Chain of Being –
1. Commodity Hell, in which brands basically focus on price and channel promotions to sell more (think groceries).
2. Differentiation, in which brands highlight product features and benefits to command a price premium (think automobiles).
3. Engagement, in which brands use service (in both its customer service and conversation meaning) to develop relationships with customers (think Dell).
4. Cultural Currency, in which brands become shared social objects and help customers define their individual and group identities (think Nike+iPod).
5. Meaning, in which brands become the tools that customers use for self-realization or restoration (think Google).
Quick Summary: Read about how engagement is only the middle level in the ‘Marketing Chain of Being’ and how social media and customer service are only tools to create engagement.
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The topic of the week in the marketing and public relations blogosphere is whether customer service is the new marketing, so much so that there’s even an upcoming event on the topic.
Most of the posts on the topic have focused on how social media is causing customer service and public relations to merge into each other to form the fabric of a new marketing paradigm.
I’m a brand manager, not a PR practitioner, and I can’t but feel that the above statement is rather simplistic. Yes, customer service is important. Yes, word of mouth is important, and, by association, public relations is important. Yes, good (or bad) customer service is an important factor in creating favorable (or unfavorable) word of mouth. Yes, social media gives customers the tools to amplify word of mouth. Yes, yes, yes and yes. But that’s only part of the story. Let me tell you the real story by going back to my post on the Marketing Chain of Being. Read More
Quick Summary: Read about how the long tail doesn’t only apply to culture and commerce, but also to relationships.
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In my earlier post about the Long Tail of Pain, I just drew a diagram of how social media allows us to experience pain anytime, anyplace, in any form, but didn’t elaborate on the idea adequately.
In this post, I’ll explain what a long tail is and how digital media has changed it. I’ll also explain how the long tail doesn’t only apply to culture and commerce, but also to relationships, specifically pain, via the Three Laws of the Long Tail of Pain.
Let me first explain what a long tail is.
A long tail curve is a statistical distribution in which a small number of data points have disproportionately high values compared to a large number of other data points that have progressively low values. If you rank these data points and plot them in the decreasing order of their values, you get a curve that first falls very sharply (forming the almost vertical head) and then falls more slowly (forming the almost horizontal tail). The Pareto Principle (the top 20% contribute 80% of the total) is an example of a long tail curve. Read More
Quick Summary: Read about The Xeta Shootout Contest, where you can make your own Xeta TV commercial in a video or storyboard format and win an Indica V2 Xeta.
You can also watch the entries submitted by others and comment on them, participate in a slogan contest on the message board, or tell your friends about the contest.
I build and nurture online communities as CEO of 2020 Social. In my previous avatars, I have studied at IIM Bangalore, held senior marketing roles at the Tata Group, taught social media at Georgetown University as the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow, and co-founded election monitoring platform Vote Report India.
3. Ask me how2020 Social can help you build and nurture online communities to connect your customers, partners and employees, catalyze collaboration and innovation, and drive loyalty and advocacy.
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